Electronic Arts is planning to lay off 1,000 employees, approximately 10% of their employees. In this layoff their also consolidating EA Black Box back into EA Canada. EA Black Box was spun off as a studio outside of EA Canada to work on such titles as Need for Speed but, with the layoffs arriving, they’re going to be merging the remainder of EA Black Box into EA Canada by June 2009. The remaining EA Black Box employees will continue working on Skate 2.
The pink slips should be issued by March 31, 2009 and we’re hoping the folks that have lost their jobs will find new jobs as soon as possible. An Electronic Arts representative said:
“This does not mean that the Black Box studio is closing. The studio is moving to our Burnaby campus to share the facility with EAC and other EA teams that operate out of our state-of-the-art facility. We will operate two distinct studios, each with their own distinct culture and teams, out of our Burnaby facility.” (gamespot)
EA hasn’t mentioned any specific franchise cancellation but we’re going to assume something is going to slip, it’s hard to imagine a company can lose 1,000 employees without impacting business operations. If EA was able to layoff 1,000 people without impacting day-to-day business, then they’re definitely hurting in the management department because that would be a ton of waste.
Big companies may cut costs during hard times but they said they’re, “implementing a plan to narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities. The company remains committed to taking creative risks, investing in new games, leading the industry in the growing mobile and online businesses, and delivering high-quality games to consumers.”
We’re curious just how much EA is willing to risk on “creative” endevours considering publishers are already hesitant to break new ground. The next few years should yield great opportunities for smaller developers to put on their creative hat and open new doors and opportunities for themselves.
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode. I did not find the time to listen to your show on a regular basis the last months, i am very sorry for that 🙁
I moved to a new city, started a new job and all of that took a lot of time and energy.
I hope i can listen to it more often in the future .. one of you guys is reminding me all the time, everytime there is a new episode .. so i will not miss any 😉
Regarding this episode:
I did not play much, nearly nothing to be honest. I think the only thing i played was 1 or 2 hours of Diablo 4 with a friend because of the new season. I did not find any time for playing Magic the Gathering, which is an indicator for my non-existing free time 🙂
– I was never into CoD and never played any of these, so i don´t really care about releases on whatever platform 🙂
– GTA6 release: i really think its funny and in addition fascinating, that a game has such an impact, that other developers plan aroud the release of such a big title, so that they dont fall apart. I never played any GTA but some of my friends do. I bought GTA 5 some months ago and tried to play it … but as mentioned above: my free time is very limited for activities at the moment 🙁
– Helldivers 2: I heard a lot about it, how much fun it is if you play it with friends and how many hours my friends spend playing it. I think i have to look out for it when i will find some time 🙂
That´s all i can say, because all other topics i never heard of or can´t say anything to it.
Please keep up the good work and stay healthy!
Greetings from germany,
Ralf